THEATRE

2016 sees The Royal Court turn 60. We have a huge love of the Sloane Square theatre; yes, what we’ve seen there over the years might have been a bit hit and miss, but there’s a tradition of risk taking that we cherish. When it’s good, it’s really, really good. So we have high hopes for the new season run. Our picks include Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone (21 Jan – 12 March), partly because the synopsis seems to boil down to “tea and catastrophe”, and mainly because everything by the British feminist playwright is sure to provoke an extreme reaction, at least it has done with us, from the first play we encountered, 1982’s Top Girls, to her 2005 adaptation of August Strindberg’s A Dream Play at the National Theatre, directed by Katie Mitchell. Mitchell also directs Ophelia’s Zimmer (17 May – 21 May) at the Royal Court this season, so that’s our next tip to book; it’s billed as an exploration of Ophelia, freed from Hamlet – expect viewing through a topsy turvy lens, perhaps literally. Third in the top three is one of the plays directed by Vicky Featherstone, the theatre’s (relatively) new artistic director. She’s behind a few plays on the slate, but we like the sound of X by Alistair McDowall (30 March – 7 May 2016) , the story of the madness unravelling a research team stranded on Pluto. Book all three before this year is out and you’ll get 20% off.